======================================================================== (AUDIO SERMON) WHERE IS THE FIRE？ by Leonard Ravenhill ======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I don't mind walking in the lights but I can't reach in it. I couldn't see who was here then I saw my three Hebrew friends here, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Came all the way from Tiber, isn't that great? Ok, ok, ok, I want you to stand and sing, really sing, holy, holy, holy, two stanzas, can you play that? So the darkness hide thee, our Father we are grateful for this privilege of coming into your presence. We're so glad we don't have to build an altar, we don't have to shed the blood of bulls and goats. We thank you for the blood that shall never lose its power, till all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more. We thank you our high priest, after two thousand years in your presence, still living to make intercession for us. Lord we, I think just now the great statesman years ago who said I wonder what would happen if God got tired of humanity. Lord we wonder what would happen if you suddenly withdrew your power from your church, if you haven't already done that. We've blundered in blindness, we've been so satisfied and content. Lord God we've not moved on, we've not possessed our possessions, we're not mature yet, we're still infants. And we cannot inherit our rights in Jesus Christ until we become the true sons of God. Breathe on us breath of God tonight. Lord wedge us in somewhere between infinity and eternity tonight. Lord do what we've never seen you do before, give us ears to hear and give us willing hearts. Lord we're in the midst of a little colony of believers in a world of five billion rebels and sinners. They love darkness more than right, they love wrong more than right, they love pollution more than purity. They love to live in a state of constant rebellion against laws, they trample underfoot your laws. Lord God we thank you for your mercy even with America today. We've broken your ten commandments ten million times before, after the sun rose this morning. And Lord at this very moment while we're here nightclubs are filled, brothels are filled, gambling saloons are filled. And your house is almost empty over the nation. Lord God save us from this horrible one hour of holding us every Sunday morning and the rest of the week in carnality. We can truly say tonight beyond the sacred page we seek thee Lord. And your servant Malachi said the Lord whom ye seek, Lord we're not seeking miracles tonight, we're not seeking healing tonight. We're not seeking some spectacular thing, we're seeking God. For as Wesley said less than thyself O do not give, in might thyself within us live come all our heart and heart. Lord stretch our horizons tonight, deepen our compassion, quicken us with the fire that comes from heaven. Help us to realize and even feel tonight our God is consuming fire. Lord God start a fire in some heart tonight that no waters of discouragement will put out. Start a fire that somebody alive in God will go to some other country and set that country ablaze. Lord God we're not seeking some narrow little selfish blessing to relieve us of a little tension. We're asking to be God-filled men, God- possessed men, God-intoxicated men. Lord God get somebody here tonight drunk in God who will never become sober again. Lord we can't pray games, it's too late. We're on the edge of judgment for our nation and for the world. So Lord we pray thee bless your sacred word to our hearts, burn it in. Help us to glorify you. May we remember this and talk about this meeting in eternity. Not just tomorrow, not at the end of this crusade or whatever it is. Not at the end of the week or the end of the month. But Lord in eternity we'll say something began there that night. It was not born of man, it was born of God. It was not born for time, it was born for eternity. Lord we don't blush, I don't blush to know you tonight. I'm greedy for blessing, I'm greedy for anointing, I'm greedy for revelation. Not for myself but for the whole of us here tonight. Lord this meeting is by divine appointment. I don't believe Brother Tim called us together, you called us together. Not to hear the voice of a man but to hear the voice of God. So Lord don't stop our ears. Give us the grace of concentration. Glorify Jesus, that's all we ask. And we ask it for his glory in Jesus name. Amen, be seated, be seated, thank you. As our brother was singing tonight I thought of a meeting I went to some quite a while ago. And the director met me when I got there. And he said you'll be speaking tonight. I said well that's okay. And he said we have a young man, a very remarkable young man. So I wondered what was remarkable. He said he writes his own songs. I said I'll come to sing more remarkable. He said what? I said I write my own sermons. We don't have to trade John Wesley's stuff. As good as it was. Almighty Luther. Okay. And I'm the only one I have to see. Shall we take a break at midnight? All right, we'll have the all right break. Good, good, good. Don't tempt me. Okay, okay. Excuse me. I've had a habit for at least 60 of my 83 years of gathering books. I don't have many, maybe I have 3,000, that's not many. I have two friends who both have 25,000. But I'm just thinking of the many volumes of biographies or autobiographies, which I like so much, written in two volumes. For instance, there's a very wonderful life of the founder of the China Inland Mission, Hudson Taylor, a big fat volume. Number one is The Growth of a Soul, explaining the expansion of the young man's personal relationship with God. The second one is The Growth of a Work, explaining the expansion of the work when he went to inland China without money, and saw a marvelous revival of the spirit of God. There are two great volumes written by Begbie on the life of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. And there are many other wonderful life stories I'd like to tell you about, but I need the time. But only God could write the life story of a man in two words. One of the greatest men that ever crossed the bridge of time. He strangled the economy of a nation. The army turned out looking for a preacher. He shut up heaven so there would be no rain. He defied hundreds of prophets. He brought fire from heaven, he brought rain from heaven, he brought life where there was death. And yet his whole life is summed up about 3,000 years after he ministered in two words in the epistle of James, he prayed. I wonder how many, we dare write that as an epitaph for how many preachers. Maybe we have to write on their gravestones, they prayed not. How many of you men are known as men of prayer I wonder? Not many. But then when it says he prayed, immediately after it says he prayed again, because he locked up heaven, and then when he prayed he released heaven. Otherwise we may have had no rain until today. He shut up heaven and he released heaven. But not only did he pray, he prayed again. Not only did he pray, he prayed before he prayed. You know this story makes very real to me anyhow, that God's ways are not our ways and God's thoughts are not our thoughts. Look for a moment, by the way I usually tell people, I'm reading from the, what version now, Bill Cooper, I usually say Bill. Oh yes, so thank you. I'm reading from the living Bible, and everybody feels comfortable that you read from that silly revelation. You know there are only ten versions, five are wise and five are foolish. Did you get that? I'm just checking to see if you're sleeping, it's warm in here. But I'm not preaching from, again that version tonight. I'm preaching from the living Bible, yes. No, I'm preaching from the NIV tonight. The never in through version, King James. So you are awake, thank you. OK, reading from this great version, the book of Kings, first book of Kings, and the 17th chapter. Listen, according to God's word, he didn't say that. What did he say? He said according to my word. You see, there are errors in faith, obviously. Many of you read about, how many of you read about, somewhere he read something about Smith Wigglesworth. Did you ever read that, some of you? Well, he wasn't a Baptist, so I won't tell anybody to raise your hand. He was a Pentecostal, isn't that terrible? But you know that man got so bold in God, a man came into his meeting one night with no feet. And he wanted prayer, so the man of God looked at him and said, What? Joking about me having no feet? The man went home, in the middle of the night, he said, that preacher scorned me, I have no feet. He said, alright, and you imagine the miracle. He said, what did the man of God tell you to do? He said, buy shoes, but I have no feet. Well, he said, do as the man says. So he went to a shoe shop the next morning, and he said to the man, hey, the man said, can I help you? He said, yes, I need shoes. And the man said, yes. You've no feet? He said, no. What do you want? I want shoes. What size? He said, eights. What color? He said, black. And he got them, and he put them down. What do you want me to do? Put them on my feet? I have no feet. Well, stick them on the stump, he did, and the foot grew like that. What do you think he did? Being a Pentecostal, he was shouting, he was a Baptist, he said, well, that's good. So then he said, put your other foot down, and he put the shoe on the other man, and the foot came. Immediately that man realized that God is the same. Yes, it had been forever. We've been through all that syndrome before. It's very good. I lived in the days in England in 1925 up to 40, when miracles like that happened continually, almost every night. You could get an auditorium that was empty one night and packed to the rafters the next night, and people got out and went round the building and lined up for the meeting the next afternoon at three o'clock, that's revival, when nobody wants to go to work. People don't want to eat, they don't want to talk, they don't want sports, the movie houses, nobody wanted to go. God was there. You see, we've got to get to the back place again. I believe God is the same. Our God is a consuming fire, and you never have to advertise fire, whether it's physical or spiritual. You've got a bumper sticker on your car with a silly doll at the end smiling, smiling, God loves you. Put it at the other end, our God, your God is a consuming fire. You'll maybe lose your car. You'll maybe win somebody to the Lord anyhow, but God is a consuming fire, and the reason millions of, billions of people are going to hell fire tonight is the church's lost Holy Ghost fire. Do you know what? I believe this meeting is the most important meeting in America tonight. If it's not, I'm a fool to be here. I don't have time to come. I'm five years behind on two books I'm trying to write. I could have gone to a conference this week. Boy, would they have given me a check this size. Why get a check that size when Tim will give me one that size. I made a promise, and I kept my promise. I made a promise to God weeks ago that from then until Christmas, I'm not going to be public, I'm not going to take invitations. And then Martha said, you promised. Brother Timmy, I said, well, I'll go because I made a promise. Then on the 24th of this month, I'm going to the Little Baptist Church there in Common Ground on a Sunday morning, apart from that, unless Brother Racey chases me. I'm not going anywhere until next year. I'm going to get away with God and be quiet and hear God's voice. We're living on the edge of the greatest disaster in history. Look at this for a minute. I'm of the inhabitants of, we don't care a hill of beans where he came from. You don't know his pedigree, you don't know his father, you don't know his mother, you don't know his nationality hardly, at least you don't know where he came from. You can't find these. He said, where's that? You can't find it on a Bible map. But there he was. But I say God's ways are not our ways. Why? What does it say here? Verse 2 says, The word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Kerith. Hide thyself? Now look at the conditions this man comes to. Who is this man? He's in a bracket of the most amazing men that ever walked this planet. Smart men walk on the moon. Men that want to risk their lives walk on the ocean just off the coast of Florida. But men who are smarter than either the scientists or the others, they're the men that walk with God. This is the man Elijah who walked with God. And God gave him revelation and authority. You see, he's in that bracket again. He is a prophet. Did you get that? All over the nation. Last year I got invitations all over. Come to a prophetic conference. The year before I got one. Come and meet with 120 prophets from all over the world. They're going to meet on Mount Carmel. Come and be with this distinguished group of prophets for three days on Mount Carmel, the very place where Elijah stood. And I said to my class, my Friday night class, there's 120 men going to meet on that mountain for three days. I think they're staying in the same hotel that Elijah stayed in. Do you think they did? Do you think they stayed in a cave with bugs and bats and rats? This man is one of the most unique men. Do you know how big he is? With all his achievements, raising the dead, turning the nation upside down, terrifying a king. Do you know what? He can't get a place in Hebrews 11. What a majestic character. I can't read Hebrews 11 without going to tears. Do you read what I had done when you read it? Do you realize this man never had a Bible in his hand? Do you realize the people in Hebrews 11 who subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, not one of them ever had a Bible? You've got every word Almighty God has said you're ever going to say. I like the hymn, Our Firmer Foundation. Remember one part of it says, What more can He say than to you He has said? If the world lasts another thousand years, God isn't going to add another chapter after Revelation. He said it. It's finished. Listen. God is not on trial in America. The church is, but He isn't. I think Shraggart and the other guys in PTO broke the heart of God. I believe Jesus will be weeping till He comes back over those men. They had the world at their feet and tossed it away for a bit of flesh. These men are dreadful men. There's a great American scholar, a Jewish scholar by the name of Bux Basin. And years ago he wrote he wrote a very wonderful exposition on Isaiah, or Isaiah if you like. I'd like to have met that man but he's long since gone ahead of me. But Bux Basin says this about a prophet. The prophet by the very nature of his calling is a tragic figure. He has a fierce loyalty to God and he has a broken heart over the sin of the people You see we've got hundreds and hundreds of evangelists in America. What's that brother? Where is he now? Ralph Sexton. I think that's him. Oh well Ralph Sexton. Where are you Ralph? Are you there? Bless you. Get some of these tapes. They stirred me. Not many things stirred me. But Ralph's text message, I'll tell you why. He's not one of these guys that comes for a one night stand. He stays in the city for 5, 6, 7, 8 weeks until God moves. You see evangelists live on God's faithful. Revivalists live on a faithful God. Evangelists normally raise funds. Revivalists raise hell. America doesn't have a prophet tonight. I preached at a prophet's conference. My three brothers were there. About three months ago. 1500 men from all over the country. They introduced me as a prophet which I denied. I'm not a prophet. I speak with prophetic urgency. Because this is the most difficult hour in American history. It's not only the most critical hour in American history. It's the most critical hour in world history. By 1990 to 1992 America will have changed and it will never change back. What's the Minister of Education called? Bennett? Is that it? Who is it? You know what he said on the news this weekend? He said, listen, we're moving in a new direction. Things are going to change. Now here he is. He said, you know what? The white man's supremacy in America is finished by the year 2000 to 2005. The number one population in America will be Hispanic. He didn't say that. I had this on. Number one population in America is Hispanic. Number two is black and number three is white. Number one language will be Spanish. Number two will be English in the year 2000. So get your kiddies at least to be bilingual. We've had our day of privilege. I think the day of the Gentiles is fulfilled, Bracey. Do you think that? We've had the majority. We've done as we like. But that's over. But look how this man comes to see. This man is a tragic figure. He comes to an atmosphere that's sold out to sensuality, idolatry, wickedness, violence, corruption of every kind. Let's run down this thing a minute here. In the same chapter, chapter 17 it says, in verse 30, Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. All right, 50 years before Elijah came onto the stage, the most beautiful nation in the world, the most powerful in the world was Israel. But they got corrupted very quickly after the dividing of the kingdom. There had been an evil king. After him came a more evil king. The second king was more evil than the first. The third was more evil than the second. The fourth was more evil than the third. The fifth more evil than the fourth. The sixth more evil. Because he exceeded the iniquity, all the aggregate iniquity of all the people, this one king Ahab defied everybody. He loved everything that wasn't that didn't have virtue. He loved everything that was vile and corrupt. And it tells you what he did. In verse 33 it says, Ahab made a grove. Verse 32, He raised up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he had built in Samaria. Ahab did more to provoke the God of Israel to anger all the kings that were before him. And he rebuilt Bethel, it says in verse 34. So here you have this man. And God says to this man, Do you get this? It is a man with a heart that flames to see his nation changed. And God says, Go hide thyself. Where's the sense? He's the only man around who's walking with God. Unless you say, Elisha was there. But you see this is a secret of his own life. The Lord says, Go hide thyself. In chapter 18, and verse 1 it says, The Lord came in the third day and said, Go, I will send rain on the earth. Elijah went to show himself. Go show thyself. I was preaching in a certain place a while ago. One of the national leaders of a great movement in America was there. And he said, Mr. Raymond, I went home and I pondered that word that you said, Go hide thyself. God has told me to hide myself. We have a young man coming to our prayer fellowship, which is Thursday mornings now if you pastors want to come. He's only a young man, but recently, and recently he earns very good money, but recently God said to him, You take one third of every day, take eight hours every day in prayer and Bible study. Then I met a man with some famous preachers two or three months ago, and he said the same thing. God has told me, now I have to give eight hours a day to Bible study and to prayer. What kind of men will they be in a year or two if they do that? Isn't it amazing what men will do? In the news the other morning it showed a young man. He's from China. He's come to learn how to box. He's gone to Gleason's famous, what do you call it, gymnasium in New York where big preachers have gone. And they said to him, Well, you come from China, yes. Do you miss China? He said, Yes. He said, How long are you here? He said, Till 1992. He said, Three years ahead. I'm going to practice so many hours a day. Well, do you like the food here? Not very much. What's the hardest thing? I left my wife. We've been married less than two years. We have a baby six months old. I won't see my wife for two more years. I won't see my baby, but I'm going to be a boxer. He's so determined to do that. Now I read about these other fellows. Oh, the energy they put in to obtain what Paul calls a corruptible crown. You know, the trouble with our generation, we've lost sight of eternity. We're not living anymore in 2 Corinthians 4 where it says, The things that are seen are temporal. The things that are not seen are eternal. And God takes this man, this dramatic character, and he says, Go hide thyself. And he goes into a cave. What do you think he did? Again, he wasn't studying botany. He wasn't studying rats. What did he do? I believe he prayed. Do you realize where this man is living? He's living right after the glorious days when the shekin, the glory of God, used to fill the temple and it's there no more. We don't see the shekin, the glory. Most of us don't even know what it is. We don't want it. We're happy to have little meetings. We're happy because we don't drink and smoke and swear and do some lousy things. But where do the gods fill men? Where do the sanctuaries where the presence is pregnant with deity and people move out and they don't talk when they leave and they don't light up cigarettes? They know they want God. So God has to get this man alone. And that's a hard thing. No man will ever be great for God unless he gets alone. Do you realize Moses, a third of his life, was on the backside of the desert. Read the 7th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He was a genius. He was learning all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He could maybe speak ten languages. He who had read before he gave the world the Ten Commandments. He had made the laws for Egypt, the greatest nation in the world at that time. And yet God takes him away on the backside of the desert. How long do you think the colors were in his royal robes? He didn't stop and change his shoes. Did he even put on his sports attire? He went straight out of the palace of an angry king to have company with God on the backside of the desert. But listen, you see, God is reserving something. As Peter said, there are some things reserved in heaven for us. God doesn't pay his bills now. Let me go back to this man Elijah for a minute. God had to get him in the quietness so he could hear the voice of God. And he's there for three years. Do you realize that's over a thousand days? I challenge you to get a thousand minutes alone. You turn the dreadful rotten TV on or you'll call sister somebody or gossip to somebody else. Spend a thousand minutes in quiet without any noise. Listen to God and see what God says. Can you and I take a thousand hours? Sometime when you have a vacation instead of going to see these and see the others, go get quiet. Go in a hotel and say I'm going to fast and wait on God for a number of days, a number of hours, a number of days. So this man goes and for three years there he is. I don't believe when this man went out from the busy life he had he left a calling card or followed my mail or sent me some food or asked all the people that love me to send me food. If there's no food send stamps. And if they can't send stamps send me money. This man is under orders from God and he moves. He only moves when God says go. He doesn't ask any questions. Don't you think he could have turned around and said Lord this isn't fair. I'm living in the most vile corrupt generation of people. They have their sex parties every night. They're drunk every night. They're sensual every night. They're devilish every night. They're just like the people here in Dallas tonight. It's as corrupt and as lousy as New York. But it doesn't trouble us. We're a broken nation. We've all homes broken with divorce. We've all children's hearts broken over parents who are divorced. We've all broken minds with drugs. We've all broken bodies with drink. America is held siege tonight like England and the rest of the world. We're held by debt and disease and drugs and devilry and witchcraft. And we've got power. The greatest thing we need now is men who touch God. We've touched everything else. Isn't it silly to say the best thing way to fight crime is to build new jails so that the best way to get healthy is to give everybody a free casket. Isn't that wonderfully logical? You see, everything's out of control. The economy's out of control. With its trillions of dollars in debt, everything's out of control. Vice is out of control. We don't know what to do with the crime. We're trying to find an answer. We don't need a nation to destroy. I don't believe Russia's going to send bombs into this country. We're going to kill ourselves. We're on a mission right now to self-destruct. I read this week that at least 100,000 people with AIDS in America who are known, and there's many more that are not known. But look, again, is this man equipped? What's he doing sitting in at that rotten, old, filthy place? Look at the rats. Then he's looking every day. He doesn't run out and say, Lord, please don't let anybody kill the little bird that's bringing my breakfast. He wasn't trusting the bird, he's trusting God. Most of the evangelists today, they don't trust God, a faithful God, they trust God faithful. There's a big difference. You can tell when a ministry runs on money instead of faith, it screams over TV, send us money, or we'll have to go off the air. Well, help God. Don't send money, let them go off the air. It's the biggest blessing in America if they went off the air. If God doesn't get them off the air one way, he'll get them off the other way. This is a crisis out in America. Our nation is doomed, our neighbors are damned, and we don't care. Two things are always very, very pregnant in revival. Number one is a prayer meeting. Number two is a street meeting. Do you realize the revival that shook England from strength to circumference under the Westleys was never in a building, it was always in the streets? Do you realize that when the power of God was on in the early days of George Whitefield in this country, the people stood in snow up to their knees for two or three hours to listen to him? Do you realize the difference between just praying church on Sundays as good as we are? Your pastor hates all the bases. You all went to church yesterday because you knew you didn't hear spiritual nursery rhymes. You have a nice little pastor, he never upsets you, God pity him. You ought to preach Sundays, you go home blazing mad. I think some of you will tonight, at least I've prayed you will. You're going to get hurt tonight. You're going to face issues tonight, not because of me but because of God. It's later than we think in America, we haven't much time left. By the year 1992, what they're going to have what European common market is going to have, what do you call it now? A universal money system and it will be greater than the Japanese system. Japan's going out of the picture. America won't be in the picture financially. In every other way, we're going to be made to cast ourselves on God. I was reading today, listen, Ezekiel 14, let me read it quickly. The word of the Lord came unto me, it says in the 14th chapter of Ezekiel in verse 12, the word of the Lord came unto me. Now listen to verse 14, listen very carefully. Though these three men know, Daniel and Job were in it, that's if they pray, they will not save anybody but their own souls. Look again in verse 16, though these three men were in it as I live, said the Lord God, they shall not deliver their sons or their daughters, they only should be delivered. And verse 18, though these three men were in it as I live, said the Lord, they shall not deliver their sons or their daughters. It goes down in verse 20 and yes, it says the same thing. And yet verse 22 says yet, behold therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth both of sons and daughters. In other words, there comes a time when God turns away from us. He's been calling us, we won't listen and we'll call him and he won't listen. In America, did God love the children of Israel? Why did he cut them off in Malachi? And Malachi said to Matthew, 400 years of darkness without any spiritual light. 400 years of stillness without any prophetic voice. Listen, we're much nearer judgment than we realize here in America. You can't have more Bible schools in this nation than all the world has outside. 600 million Bibles. How many of them are being used today? How many people really know what a Bible is? How many people know what a Bible is? How many know what a Bible is? How many people know what a Bible is? How many people know what a Bible is? How many people know what a Bible is? How many people know what a Bible is? How many people know what a Bible How many people know what a Bible is? How many people know what a Bible How many what a Bible is? How many people know what a Bible How many what a Bible is? How many what a Bible is? what a Bible How many people know what a Bible is? what a Bible is? This is from a book that's recently been put out by the Banner of Truth. It's called Come Down Lord. It's about revival. Listen to this. If I tell you what happened in the days of Whitfield, you say it's 200 years ago. Well listen, this happened in a country called America, in a city called Denver. I'll give you the date. It says this. I read in the newspaper recently of an awakening in Denver in 1905, under the preaching of Wilbur Chapman, the Denver Post says in its headline, the entire city, it's January 20th, 1905, the Denver Post says, the entire city pauses for prayer, even at high noon. An entire city. Nobody wanted to shop. Nobody wanted to go to the bank. God was moving. They didn't know what the next manifestation would be. Maybe a prayer meeting would break out in Sears Roblox or somewhere. Suddenly business was transformed and a holy God came in sovereign power. He's not going to wreck the Holy Ghost. Some of these boys in the seminary, they're trying to teach the Holy Ghost. He came to teach us. We'd better get into line, otherwise he'll desert us. Forget my English for a minute. A young man came in my office last week, last year rather. Charming young guy, rough. I want to give him a dollar. I want to give him 50 cents for his shoes and his hat and everything he had. He had a pack on his back. He and his two brothers had been in Nicaragua. They'd been with the Sandinistas where bullets were flying past. And the three men were together, these three brothers. And they told me about the power of God that they'd witnessed there. But this is the thing he said to me. He said, Mr. Rayleigh, you've spent more than half a century praying. Yes, and if I live another half I'll do it. He said, but don't you realize this? God's favor isn't here. He said, look, we've got the greatest army in the world. Now he's an American, forget my tongue. We've got the greatest army in the world. We've got the greatest air force in the world. We've got the greatest navy in the world. But we can't liberate ten fine young Americans in Lebanon who are watching in prison cells there. We've got a man in Panama, Noriego, he thumbs his nose at us every day. We can't get him out of there. We're totally helpless. Our strength is no good in military power. God is not going to deliver America through technology. He's going to deliver it through theology. God ordained, God energized theology. These big shots have had their days and never knew any more strikers and never any more PTO by the grace of God. He's going to raise up men from the Carolinas. He's going to raise a black boy that was driving a bus today in Alabama. He's going to raise somebody we don't know. Nobody knew where Enoch was. Nobody knew where Elijah was. He's hidden in a cave. But he never moved and hears his secret until he heard the voice of God. He doesn't say, Lord, I ask for revelation. I want to see the coming Jesus because outside of where I live, it's opposition, it's ridicule, it's every form of sensuality, excessive iniquity, uncleanness. The nightclubs are full with naked, lusting, lying people. And here I am sitting here. Lord, I want to get up and go. Don't you think people said the same about the Apostle Paul? Somebody comes on a tour and they say, who's in that prison cell there? It's a man by the name of the Apostle Paul or by the name of Paul. Maybe they didn't call him Saint Paul then. It's a man there in the backside of a prison cell. A prison cell running with rats. A lousy prison cell. And here's one of the greatest men that ever lived. My brother here teased me when I say he had a colossal intellect. I believe Paul was the greatest genius that ever lived outside of Jesus Christ. But there he is in a prison cell doing what? Writing love letters to the Philippians. Writing love letters to the Thessalonians. Writing love letters to the Romans. Dear God, what's he doing there? That man can raise the dead. That man can cast out devils. Get up and get going. You see, we're activists. We're all busy. Busy doing nothing. I guarantee most of you preachers, we went to bed last night, not a demon in hell was terrified. He said he's been asleep all day anyhow. Let him sleep all night. Some of you guys want to be famous in your denomination. Forget the denomination. Maybe it's an abomination. Get to the place where all that matters with you is you're filled with God. Your heart is filled with the love of God. Your eyes are filled with the vision of God. And your will is filled with the will of God. Listen, what we've had in evangelism in the last 25 years has not moved America. We're more sinful. We've more divorces. We've more sex. We've more crime. We've more AIDS than we had 25 years ago. Our million dollar crusades haven't done anything. Why in God's name do preachers need million dollar homes, million dollar swimming pools, million dollar airplanes? What good is it? I'd rather have no shoes and nothing to eat with the anointing of God than have all these creature comforts that men have. Since when has almighty God, or has the devil been afraid? Listen, I'll tell you what the power of God is. Don't ask for it unless you mean suffering. Today we want a painless Pentecost. There isn't such a thing as a painless Pentecost. Pentecost in the Bible meant persecution, pain, privations, poverty, and prison. Oh, there's a Pentecostal preacher in prison now. He should be there a hundred years. Do you want a testimony that will kick you out? Do you approve it? Or are you trying to preserve your little wife and children? Listen, I've lived without income as it were for 66 years. I've never sent out a newsletter. My precious son has been on the mission field 30 years, never once asked for a dime. And he's five children and he has to pay for his 10 radio stations a month in advance. He can't come crying, I'm behind, I'm behind. I wish those guys would get so far behind they'd get lost. But listen, I'll tell you what, we're gonna have to prove what we've got. Then theology, we're gonna have to eat it before very long. We're running into a crisis in America, unparalleled in American history. America has never been more religious than she is at this moment, and she's never had less power. You say, what about England? She's as rotten as America. In fact, there are more clergymen in England with AIDS than there are in America. That's nothing to boast of. My country gave the world the Bible. My country gave the world the Western Revival. My country gave the world the Salvation Army Bible that went into 90, 70 countries in 90 years. William Booth stepped on the gutter. His wife had a curvature of the spine. He had no money, had no assets. She said, William, what are we gonna do? He said, darling, we'll go for the worst. And they stepped out and eventually they had a Holy Ghost Revival. They've lost their anointing now. But who hasn't? That's fashionable. But listen, I'll tell you what, I'd like to be on the devil's list of most wanted men in America, would you? You really mean that? Because you may be before the week's out. Sure, the Apostle was the greatest theologian ever. Look at the majesty of the epistles of the Romans. Look how he unveils the second coming of the Lord Jesus. But then he unveils the cross, the majesty of the cross. You see, nowadays we've forgotten two things. The average preacher today has lost sight of the awesome beauty and thrilling majesty of the Gospel. Wesley says over and over and over in his wonderful, wonderful diaries. I looked at them the other day. John Wesley says, I went to Wednesbury, or I went to Lancashire, or I went to London, or I went to Birmingham. And what did he do? He said, I offered men Christ. We don't offer men Christ, we offer forgiveness, we offer pardon, we offer peace, we offer prosperity now. Forget it. Let's beg back to the old rugged cross. There's no substitute for this. Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will blow all men unto Him. We're not preaching Christ. Listen to Charles Wesley. Charles put his brother's theology to music. Charles Wesley says this, my heart is full of Christ. Not my head is full of theology. My heart is full of Christ and longs this glorious message to declare. Here you have a young man, a brilliant scholar like his brother, teaches in Oxford University. So what happened? One day, the old mother Wesley, she's a wonderful woman. She has 17 children. That doesn't make her wonderful, but she has 17 children. She found a copy of a little book which has been republished fairly recently. It's been published more than any other book in England except the Bible and Bunyan's Progress. It's called A Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougill. Listen, being born again isn't giving up lousy habits. What's the good of having your name on a church roll? You might as well have it on an egg roll. I'd rather have the egg roll, it's got a better taste in it anyhow. Do you know what? Here's a book you've got to get you preachers. Getting evangelicals saved, isn't that a job? Do you know what preaching is? It's 30 minutes to raise the dead. I go to churches, this is different. I guess you're all alive. I go to churches, every row I see in churches, death row, they're dead in trespassing and in sin. They've gone to church for 20 years and never felt the power of conviction. We've lost all sight of conviction, the power of God. It's all psychology. Listen, you can rub two ice cubes together for now till you die, you'll never get a spark. And if you're rubbing your theology on psychology, you'll die dead too. There'll be no fire. But listen to what this says. I wanted to get a copy of this written by a friend of mine. Paris Reid, I hope you get him sometime Gracie, at your church. He's a fabulous preacher. He'd been a mystery for 30 years. Let me get this for a moment and read it to you, if I can find it. Here it is. You can assume you're saved, he says, with a third and fourth and fifth generation where we stand today, the gospel has been obscured. We find today, if you just say this and say O-R afterwards, you're declared saved. And then he says, probably, now listen, this is in the greatest Baptist, Southern Baptist church in Spartanburg. That's where our brother lives, somewhere up there. The greatest, let me read it correctly. The practice led the pastor of a large church in Memphis, Memphis. Adrian Rogers is there now. To make a bold statement, once before the Southern Baptist convention in Spartanburg, Carolina, he declared on the base of the church, the greatest Baptist, Southern Baptist church in Spartanburg, Carolina. He declared on the base of the church, the greatest Baptist, Southern Baptist church in Spartanburg, Carolina. He declared on the base of the church, the greatest Baptist, Southern Baptist church in Spartanburg, Carolina. He declared on the base of the church, the greatest Baptist, Southern Baptist church in Spartanburg, Carolina. He declared on the base of the church, the greatest Baptist, Southern Baptist church in Spartanburg, Carolina. He declared on the base of the church, the greatest Baptist, Southern Baptist church in Spartan and his 40 years of close observation in the church. Listen, this is an established, distinguished Southern Baptist preacher. I preached with him not long ago. He's a principle guy. And he says, probably not more than 1 out of 10 of the Southern Baptists experientially know anything about the new birth. That's not a criticism from a Pentecostal. It's one of the finest ones I've ever preached with. He has, what, 10, 12,000 membership away there in Memphis, Tennessee. And he says, most of the people in the Baptist church are not even born again. Carl F. Henry says, he made a survey and he says 20% of church members that he contacted never prayed, 25% never read the Bible, 30% don't attend Sunday school, 90% never had family prayers. Come on, you're a Sunday school teacher, a deacon. Do you have family prayers in your house every day? No. Neither do they in Russia. You better get your children indoctrinated. They're going to live in a hell of a world. Why schools are jungles now? What did I say yesterday on the news? There were 1 million school children who got involved in crime last year. Children 9 years of age got involved in sex. It's a tragic hour in which we live. The world is broken, people's minds are broken, families are broken, hearts are broken, bodies are broken, nerves are broken. But the church isn't half wrong about it. We couldn't care less. When did you last end your prayer meeting in tears? Why dear God, you've got a daddy and mommy not saved. Oh, but my son-in-law is a preacher. Will that be a comfort when they're in hell? You know what the agonies of hell will be? They'll see straight into heaven. They'll see daddy and mommy at the marriage supper of the Lamb while they're burning in hell forever. And they'll be turning daddy and mommy's name over. How do I know? Because Jesus said there was a man, and he's in Abraham's bosom, and there's a man in hell, and he sees Abraham. He sees Jairus in the bosom of Abraham, typical of heaven. And so from the blackness of hell, he could look into heaven and he could see that man in comfort. What an agonizing thing. Some of you people, you care more about your Sunday school children than your own children. You take more concern about ruling the church than ruling your own house. How many of you men are really king in the home and priest in the home? I'd better get off there. Except on the next page it mentions that Dr. Chaucer says just about the same thing. He says, in my denomination, which is Christian Missionary Alliance, he said they, Dr. Chaucer made the same observation among evangelical churches, including the Society of which I'm a part, and he was the leading preacher in the Christian Missionary Alliance. He says in the churches and the Society of which I'm a part, probably not more than one out of ten know anything experientially about the new birth. He said exactly what the Baptist Brotherhood said, isn't it? Look, I make an appeal here, I'm not going to ask you for a thing. Do you know what we're dying of in America? We're overstuffed with teaching and no preaching. Where are the preachers? Where is the thus saith the Lord? You talk about Spurgeon. I was having a meal in a house in 1937. I went for a snack in a very gorgeous home full of antiques and Persian rugs and everything else, and the old lady was sitting on a chair with carved arms and a plush seat in the back, a little thing on her head, a lace collar, and she said, oh I'm so glad to see you, I've wanted you to come for a year. My daughters, my girls, she said, the girls, one was seventy-two, one was seventy-four, so take courage, you old girls. My girls go to the First Baptist Sunday morning, but they come to the tabernacle to hear you Sunday night. And Mr. Rainer, I want to tell you something, I said, do. She said, you preach just like Spurgeon. I said, please, please. She said, my daughters make notes, and they come home, we sit round the fire, and we, we, I listen to them. Oh, Mr. Rainer said, Mr. Rainer said this, you know, he gets excited about it. He makes you want to believe it. It makes you believe there is a heaven, there is a heaven. It makes you believe that Jesus is waiting to receive us. And she said, you know, when they're talking like that, I say, you know, Spurgeon used to do that. And I said, dear lady, oh I just realized, you are ninety- five, aren't you? She said, yes. Did you hear Spurgeon? Oh, hear him, she said. He was wonderful. But Mr. Rainer, do you know, it wasn't when he preached he was wonderful, very often it was when he prayed. He lifted us into eternity when he prayed. You may as well have a parrot in your church, or a tape recorder, or we'll ask Deacon Smith to pray. Thank you, Lord, bless the service this morning, bless the preacher, bless the offering, bless the choir, amen, thank you. Drop dead. And the press said, the theater was packed last night, standing room only, they turned three thousand people away. The preacher went and looked the next day, and people were going up the road, and there they were packing the theater and turning away. So he sent notice to the preacher, he said, would you like to drop in and see me? I pastor the greatest church in this town. But he said, my church is only three quarters full. He said, sir, is it true that anywhere you go you pack the theater to the brim? He said, yes. He said, what's the secret? He said, preacher, could it be this, I make artificial things look real, and you make real things look artificial? Is that true in your church? But listen, there are things you don't know about Spurgeon, there's a new biography of him out, you need to read. Do you know what he did? He was saved at fifteen years of age. After what? After seven weeks of conviction. Dear God, you talk about abortion, there are more people aborted spiritually yesterday in America than were aborted all last week in the hospitals. They come to the front, they're not born again. The preacher says, no one ever got saved by repeating Romans 9 and 10. With the heart, non-believers, not memory. Listen, you preachers are the judgment seat of Christ, you'll be charged with gross or criminal negligence. Why? Let me say this quickly. I don't listen to much TV, but I like animals, and I like to see some things going on. So they said, tonight on TV we're going to show you the birth of a giraffe. Well, I've met a lot of stiff-necked people, so I watched it. He's 19 feet tall, the female is 15 feet tall. She's pregnant, and watch, she gives a rerun. And then the animal turned this way, and he said, watch, and she spread her legs at the back and suddenly she dropped a baby, a little baby giraffe. From the mother's womb to the ground is five feet, and the little thing fell in the straw, and she looks around as though she's smiling, and the man said, this awesome thing that struck me so forcibly, she won't leave that baby for three to four hours. She'd lick it clean, she'd wait, and he said, now watch, watch. He kept watching. Once or twice he tried to get over it, rolled over this way, rolled over that way, and finally she put her hoof behind it very gently, and the little thing stood up and she looked as though she's smiling, nodded her head, the little thing walked away. A giraffe who spent three to four hours with his baby, and yet you spent three minutes at the Aussie yesterday morning asking somebody to fill out a three-by-five card and send them back to hell. They weren't born again, and you know it. But you do it every Sunday. Every card that they sign will face you at the judgment seat. Why did you leave them? Why didn't you say, listen, I'll stay behind with you? One of the greatest preachers in the world in my generation was Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones in London, I talked with him. Do you know the evening on a Sunday morning when I was preaching in Ockingay's great church, Park Street in Boston, and a young man came to me and he said, well, old chap, how are you? I said, well, old chap, I'm fine, how are you? He was English, of course you know. And I said, what are you doing here? Why do you come to this church? I mean, there's all kinds of churches here, and why do you go here? And he answered like this, he had his Bible, he said, Mr. Raymond, when I come to this church, I need my brains and my Bible. Other churches need emotion. Why did you get saved? He said, I got saved in Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones' church in London. I know that, I've been in their Westminster chapel around the corner from Westminster Abbey. He said, a friend said to me, you're an intern now at St. Luke's Hospital in London. What did you do on Sunday? Golf, of course. Go to church? Church? Nobody worth listening to. He said, come with me to Westminster Chapel. The pastor there used to be the assistant to Lord Horder, who was the physician to the King of England. He's a genius. Come and hear him. And he said, I went, and week by week I listened as this man expounded the word of God, preaching in Romans. I'm going out one Sunday morning. He said, Doctor, I'm concerned about my spiritual life. I don't believe I'm born again. Could I see you next Sunday morning after chapel? He said, yes, sir. What is your name? Oh, I'm Dr. Jones. All right, Doctor, I'm a physician, I'm a doctor. I'll see you at half past twelve, half an hour after Sunday morning worship in my office. And I said, what was it like? I didn't go. He said, why? He said, I was going out. The doctor said, oh, I know. You're the young doctor. You want to see me at half past twelve? No, sir. Well, you did, as conviction left you. Aren't you troubled about your soul? Not a bit. Why not? He said, because, sir, this morning at exactly 11.15, as you were preaching, I passed from death unto life. You can't find your young people. They've been to the altar 50 times. They don't know they've passed from death unto life because they haven't. We think that salvation is for beggars and tramps and bums and harlots, and it is, thank God. But going back to Wesley for a minute, here's got a man of impeccable morality, a scholar and a gentleman, and he gets born again of the Spirit of God. Then he wrote that lovely hymn, And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood? Remember the second stanza? Here is a man, he has no trail of crime. He isn't divorced. He hasn't lived in uncleanness. He's as clean as Nicodemus himself. But he writes in the second stanza, Long, my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night, Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light, my chains fell off. Listen, chains are chains that are made of gold. Some of you haven't done a lot of lousy things, but you're chained just the same. You're changed to your grandfather's theology and it's as dead as he is. So you're chained to customs in the church. You're not free at all. But whom the sun sets free and free indeed. When Wesley got emancipated, did he know? He says yes. 24th of May, 1738, the clock was touching 15 minutes to nine, when suddenly I felt my heart was strangely warm. A Catholic theologian said he was having an epileptic fit. Well, I hope 50 of you have one tonight. No epileptic fit. It transformed him. It brought him to America as a missionary. So he lay down in the forest in Georgia, went to sleep and woke up frozen to the ground. Had to pull one leg free, then pull the other leg free, then pull his arm free, pull his hair out of the mud and then brush the snow off and raise his hands and sing the Doxology. Our preacher would come home and tell you how heroic they were, send them to California for a month's holiday or something. This man goes on in weariness and painfulness. Why? Because he'd been miraculously transformed. What is salvation? It's the life of God in the soul of man. When men come in my office, I say, tell me one thing, do you know God? Well, I didn't ask you that. Well, let me ask you another question. Does Christ live in you? Well, I was saved. I didn't ask you that. Does Christ live in you? Have you a new nature? Have you new habits? Have you new desires? Have you a new language? Have you a new interest? Have you a new vision? If any man be in Christ, any man anywhere at any time, he's a new creation. Do you know how rotten men are, how sinful? Well, let me hurry, I've only two hours left. Okay, so here you have this man, Elijah. Go hide thyself. He doesn't quarrel, he doesn't say please send Elijah to come and help me. He stays for three years in solitary confinement, walking with God, talking with God. I believe he saw visions we don't know a thing about at all. Doesn't Jesus say later in the gospels, your father Abraham rejoiced, I see my day. Where did he see it? Come on, let me go a minute here. I'm hopping up and down, I know that. But wait a minute, here is a man and the soldiers are turning every sod over, they're looking behind every tree to try and find this man of God. Okay, he's got Ahab, he's got Ahab digging a pit for his feet. He's got the wicked Jezebel, the essence of everything that's diabolical breathing down his neck. There's a price on his head. He hears men hollering, keep going, keep going. They're looking for him. They'll stab him to death or tear him apart. Do you think in that crisis moment that that man ever dreamed he'd stand on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus? Do you? I don't. You see God doesn't lay all the prizes in front of us. If I could push the door of heaven open an inch and put like you've seen it tonight, you'd never backslide, you'd never lose your fervor, you'd never lose your vision, you'd never get selfish and cantankerous, you'd never be whining because you're not enough clothes to wear, enough things to eat. We don't seem to eternity. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, so he turns his back on all the wealth of the greatest nation in the world. Okay, Elijah stands on the Mount of Transfiguration with all the angels looking on and all the demons looking on. There is Jesus in all his majesty, and this is the little man that was running in front of Ahab. This is the man that stood before the thousands of, hundreds of priests. This is the man that called fire from heaven. This is the man that raised the dead. Don't you think that few minutes he had with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration eclipsed everything in his life? What about Moses going up the hill, his garments are torn, he's been running after sheep so often, he's sick to death of eating the same old meat and stuff every day. And now he hears a noise in the valley, it sounds like thunder, it isn't, it's the children of Israel murmuring against him because his sister's turned her back on Moses. His brother, who's supposed to be the high priest, has led people into nakedness and dancing and sin, and Moses is crushed. He's left behind the wealth of the greatest empire in the world, and here his brother fails him, his sister fails him, and everybody in the valley is grouchy about Moses, they're not getting the right thing. Do you think at that moment he ever dreamed that one day in eternity that whoever conducts the music there, Gabriel says, stop a minute, we're going to sing the Hallelujah Chorus better than Handel ever dreamed of it. And the whole creation joins in the Hallelujah Chorus. And then he says, wait a minute, we're going to sing something more glorious than that. What are we going to sing? And there's Moses standing with 50 billion people, and suddenly Gabriel says, there's Moses, listen Moses, I know you had it rough, you got out of Egypt, you were terrified, but listen, you enjoyed the Hallelujah Chorus, yes, so well listen now, we're going to sing the Son of Moses, not the Lamb. What will it be like? Do you think they're worrying about his blistered feet? Do you think they're worrying about his burrowed back slit? Do you think it'll be about all the priests that failed him? Of course not. There's a hymn that says, the eternal glories gleam afar to know of my faint endeavor, so now to watch, to work, to war, and then to rest forever. You know, it's going to be glorious. I haven't seen or heard, but God has revealed it to us, if we walk with him. Sometimes I go to bed at nine at night, I get up at midnight usually, but some nights I've not been in bed an hour, and I feel the bed's burning. My hearts are full of joy and ecstasy. I go in my office, my sweet precious Martha, come at two o'clock and say, Lynn, are you coming to bed? Oh, I won't be long. You always say that, she says. I'm going to keep saying it. Cheer up, dear. And then I maybe spend another hour. Do you know what I'll tell you all? Only the last five years has Christ become as precious as he's become. I've never seen things as I see them now. We live, we're so earthbound, we so see the things that are seen, that are temporal, not seen, returnal. Okay, here's a book called Take Your Glory, Lord. Where's... Bill, do you have a copy of this? Did you give me it back? You did, you sure? Because I couldn't find it today. I didn't think you sold it. But, Lynn, I'll tell you, I have this. You can't buy this. I won't sell you this for a hundred dollars. Try me with a thousand. And I'll give it to a missionary. Do you know what it's about? It's a little black man. He went into a meeting in Spartanburg. And I told this story in Spartanburg, and there's a big fellow at the back, and he's doing, you know, somebody wound him up. Coming out of the meeting, he said, listen, I enjoyed what you said tonight about Duma. I said, why? Have you heard this story before? No. I haven't heard it. I was there when it happened. What? A little black man comes to the altar in a church in South Africa. Going out, the pastor says, Duma, can I help you? Sir, can I help you? He says, no. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. He said, give me a church. What? I've never seen you before. What do you want? Give me a church. What do you mean, give you a church? Oh, he said, you're the little black man, nails at the front, aren't you? He said, no, I'm not. He says, you are. He said, nobody else wears clothes like that, blue shirts with a chalk stripe. That's where the dignified piece of cloth they wear down here. You're the black man at the front. He says, I'm not. He said, you are. I said, I'm not. He said, what do you mean, you're not? He said, the man that went to the altar died. I'm a new man. Sounds like I was saved, the old-fashioned way, doesn't it? He said, I'm a new man. Some weeks after he went, he said to the pastor, oh, you're the man that wanted a church, yes. Where have you been? I've been away for five weeks. Where? He said, you told me you couldn't give me a church. I walked up the road. I found a path in the forest. I followed the forest path. I went to a stream. I found a cave. I put a mark on the cave. I stayed there 21 days and 21 nights and said, Lord, you make it very clear to me if I am to be a preacher. And he said, the Lord, after 21 days and nights said, listen, you're called to preach and you're called to heal. That's pretty hard for a Baptist to take, isn't it? It's far better to let them die. People say, our pastor doesn't believe in healing. I say, I saw him in hospital the other day at a woman's bedside. What was he praying, Lord, take this woman's life quickly? No, the church is praying for her. You don't believe in healing. Be honest about it. Okay. Okay. So what happened? Dillmer went round, the sick were healed. And before he raised the dead, people asked me, do you pray for the dead? I said, no, I preach to them. He prayed over the dead. I told a famous, world famous preacher who lived a mile away from me, I said, you need to read this. He read it. I said, what do you think of it? He said, Len, I can't take it. Why not? He said, it's not documented. It's all right. He said, Miss Kuhlman said that, but a lot of things you couldn't document. He said that story of Dillmer has been stretched. Okay. Two years ago, a man knocked at my door. And I said, hey, good to see you. For the moment, I didn't get who he was. Then I suddenly realized, he's a famous evangelist from South Africa. And I've forgotten his name, my dear mother's name. I can't hear you, sweetie. Anyhow, it doesn't matter. Oh, thank you. Roger Vogt. Thank you. Roger Vogt. I said, by the way, Roger, did you ever meet a man called Dillmer? He said, William Dillmer? I said, yes. I said, listen, I've got a book here. He raised the dead. He cast out demons. He did wonders. But a very world famous preacher won't believe that. He said, I'll tell you something greater than that. He did my family. Is it greater than raise the dead? He said, yes. He said, a month before I left South Africa, that's two years ago, my daughter presented me with my first grandchild. What's miraculous in that? This is it. There was a knock on the door. I went, there's William Dillmer. Oh, dear William, what are you doing at my house? The Lord told me in prayer last night, get on the overnight train. He'd come hundreds of miles because there's somebody very, very desperately sick in your house. He said, yes, my daughter's lying on the floor. We signed the paper. The doctor took a third of her brain away. And she's lying like a vegetable. She can't even make spittle for her own lips. And she's a vegetable. I want to pray for her. I said, all right. He went in and prayed. Nothing happened. He went in and prayed. Nothing happened. He went in and prayed again. Took her by the hand and said, rise in the name of Jesus. And immediately life came. And she became whole. Became so whole with a third of her brain moved. And I said, what about this book? He said, I'll tell you the name of the hospital where the dead person was raised. I'll tell you the name of the atheist doctor who saw it. I'll give you every specific you need on the raising of the dead. But more, he said, when I see my daughter that was destined to death, that lay for months like a vegetable, gets pregnant, raises a gorgeous baby, what do you do? You don't give any credit to medical science? God intervene. God doesn't need to intervene for us. We've got it all planned out where we'll go. We don't get people delivered. We send them to the psychologist. The guy himself needs deliverance. We've got so many crutches today. I want to see the God of Elijah come in majesty and come in glory. And see these awakenings again that stop the traffic. If I were to ask you, and I'm going to hurry, if I were to ask you as the greatest preacher amongst the Baptists, I guess most of you would say Spurgeon. Well he wasn't. Here's a new life of John Bunyan just put out by the Banner of Truth. I think it's the best edition ever on his life. Do you know what happened to John Bunyan? John Bunyan was an illiterate man. He was a tinker. He used to come around in England with pieces of metal and repair your pans. You know pans were all made of tin then. They put a patch on it. And his parents were like that. So here is John Bunyan. You say Spurgeon was the greatest soul winner. Do you know in all the years that Spurgeon was in London he never once made an altar call. He said after Sunday morning service if you're troubled about your soul come and see me in the morning at 7 o'clock in my office. In the evening service if you're concerned about your spiritual condition come to my office at 7 o'clock Monday night. And people stream in all day to see him. What do you do on Sunday and Monday? Glort over your preaching? Get up in the morning say to people if you're disturbed about your soul I'm your pastor. I'm more disturbed. I have to answer to God with a judgment for you. So Spurgeon never made an altar call. Spurgeon isn't known as a preacher any more but he's a man of prayer. A new biography that is out of him. I didn't bring it with me. You know what it says? Brother Bracey I thought of this. He says he was so convulsed in prayer he would pray and sweat before going on the platform. The deacons had to get him out of his arms and open the door and push him on the platform. And some days this mighty man of God would say I'm totally unworthy to preach. I shouldn't go and preach this morning. You don't do that do you? You look at the wall and see a diploma. Listen fellows there's something you can't with a degree or a diploma. Saturday morning a man called me from the other end of America. He said I've just got a copy of my Revival Tarot. I'm reading chapter 3 and you say there with all your getting get unction. What is unction? I described to him about the anointing of God. The Greeks talked about the athletics and the nimbus. But the anointing of God is far beyond the athletics of an orator or a nimbus. It's some divine mysterious finger of God that comes. The greatest preacher in England in the day of John Bonny and the illiterate man who was the greatest preacher. He was the king preacher of all the Puritans. By the name of what? John Owen? There's a brief sketch of this on the back, a word sketch. The greatest preacher in England was the vice-chancellor of Oxford University. King Charles II would say I have celebrities coming from all over the world. Tell Dr. John Owen to be here at 1 o'clock tomorrow to preach. And every time they had celebrities they sent for Owen. Do you know people went to Hades to listen to this? Dear God you could tempt people and beg them to come to church. You know they did in the days of the Puritans. 2,000 people went to Hades. John Owen in the morning, Sunday morning. And there was no mass communication. They walked in the snow and got wet through them. They sat on benches with no padded seats. And they listened for 2 hours. Dear God our people can't listen 20 hours. Of course they can watch a football match for 2 hours. They can go and watch opera all night. Last year in Wimbledon, England, title ladies were sweeping out in the street at the side of the tennis courts to get into the court. They're not concerned about the courts of the king of kings. But these beautiful dressed stylish ladies could speak half a dozen languages, lived in mansions, came by plane and train. They wanted to see an exhibition of tennis. And they lay all night. Dear God you can't get people to your church for a half night of prayer if you came to Heaton and give them free sandwiches and all the rest. We've no hunger for God. And until we have hunger for God, hunger for holiness, hunger for righteousness, the taverns will still be filled. People say, Mr. Raymond, you don't realize every Sunday morning every church in America almost is filled. I say, listen, wait a minute, I'll kill you with your own, I'll take your crutches and hit your head off with them. You tell me they come Sunday morning for an hour. Do you know the jails in America are filled every hour of every day for a year? Not one hour on Sundays, every day. You know people don't care the nation is damned. Oh they'll sing with their hand on their heart. Surely those guys that have all gone to jail, that got all that money and spent it up on the, what do you call it, in the stock market. The guys that were doing all the inside trading, millions of dollars. They sang my countenances of thee and all the wretched rhetoric and it didn't mean a thing. Don't you sing, well the whole realm of nature and I and you won't give up an ounce of anything for God. You see we've got mixed up. You go to Bible school, you go to a seminary in Dallas or Fort Worth, why? To learn to know your Bible, forget it. You don't need to know your Bible, you don't need to know the Word of God, you need to know the God of the Word. Elijah didn't know the Word of God, well he knew the God of the Word. And he never moved until God said go. God said go hide thyself. He hid himself for three years it says. On the third year it says in the 18th chapter. And then what? God said go. Go what? Go show yourself to the king. The king's going to kill me. Well you'll see. He doesn't care a hill of beans about that. But going back a moment there, what does it say here? The great Puritan vice-chancellor of Oxford University, John Owen, was told by King Charles II, why do you so frequently? You're a man of scholarship. When he went to the king's presence he had a red scarf around his neck and a yellow scarf denoting all his distinctions in his degrees. He was a Hebrew scholar, he was a Greek scholar, he was a philosopher, he was a historian. And here he goes to a beggar of a preacher that murders his English? The king says, Dr. Owen, I heard of thee, in his old English, that thou dost go and hear that babbling Baptist very often preach. Doctor, why do you go? He said, your majesty, if I could preach like that man I would lay all my robes at his feet. He has something scholarship hasn't given me. He has something history hasn't given me. He's something that's mysterious about him. People stand and weep. John Bunyan could preach two hours and people would tremble under the power of God. They don't tremble anymore. Demons tremble when they hear about God, but our people don't. But I'll tell you what, when Holy Ghost conviction comes they will. Let me go back a minute to Spurgeon. When Spurgeon got older they asked him, when were you saved? I was 15 years of age and for seven long weeks I was under conviction of sin. That's a boy, under conviction of sin. He never smoked a cigarette, he'd never been in a dirty movie, his life was clean. But he knew there was a distance between him and God. I came to Jesus Christ as clean as any man that ever came to Christ. I lived in a strict Methodist home. I had a praying mother and a praying father and a singing mother and it was wonderful. And the thing that brought me to Christ was this, my daddy loved his Bible, I didn't love my Bible. My daddy loved to pray, I didn't want to pray. My daddy stood at the street corner of a witness, I didn't want to witness. It wasn't what I'd done that troubled me, it was what I hadn't done. I hadn't loved God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Listen, many of you are not prodigals, wandering away from God, you're rebels, you won't let God rule your life. Elijah went and showed himself to Ahab. I'm going to restore this now. I want to just hold on to one thing here before I wind up. You've got all the armies of Israel. Isn't it an amazing thing that at the end of his trip, Elijah says to the king, you bring all the people of Israel before me. Isn't that stupid? What do you mean? Everybody in Israel hates you. Look at them walking, they're lame. They've had no food for three years. They've had no new clothes. They're weary and they're worn. You're asking to be assassinated. He said, I don't care about that. All I care is I want God to be vindicated. And so they bring all the people trudging along the road, hungry and tired. And the judgment, the proof is this. As you know, Elijah says, get the prophets of Baal to come. And there are 800 of them altogether. And he's alone by himself, but one man with God is a majority. You say, what can I do? Do you know this week we celebrated 50 years from World War I? When Hitler was scorned in England, they said that little German has Charlie Chaplin's mustache on his lip. He's insane. We don't need to fear him. He made the whole world shake. Just one man. What a fanatical idea. And he made the world to tremble. In our day, the Ayatollah Khomeini, he was in prison in France for 10 years. The Shah of Persia had the largest air force in the Middle East, the largest army, the largest collection of jewels, sitting on a peacock's throne. There he was. Here's a ragged Ayatollah living on bread and butter. He hardly had anything. He sacrificed like Gandhi did. Gandhi hardly had anything he owed his own. He lived on bread and drink and water. He sacrificed so people follow him. Can you find an evangelist you want to live like today? Why do you need million dollar homes, million dollar swimming pools, million dollar jets? Won't they be a little ridiculous at the judgment seat? Read the back of your Bible and see where Paul went, without any train or plane, all over four mystery journeys that are standing and in prison, all because the power of God motivated him. OK, let's get these people, they're all lined up. And Elijah says, come on now, you can have the first try. The God that answers by fire, let him be God. Now you try. So the priests stand there, they beat their breasts, they shout, they scream and they're dead till the sun's going down. And Elijah gets scornful, he says, well call on your God, maybe he's gone shopping, maybe he's sleeping, maybe he's on a vacation. Somebody once said to the doctor, told you you're pretty scornful at times, he said, so is Elijah and so am I, when it comes to mocking the priests of Baal. You see, all that we see around him, growth to Ashcroft and to Baal, they're all in America today. I looked in the 17th, and in England too, I looked in the 17th chapter of Acts today, what does it say there? It says that when Paul went up Main Street, and what happens? He saw the people, they were worshipping what? Strange gods. There were Epicureans and Stoics and philosophers and poets, and he marched in the middle of them, and he talked to them about the resurrection of Jesus and Judgment Day. But he said when he looked round and he saw the streets were lined with temples to false gods, it says in the English, King James Version, his spirit was stirred. Philip said in his translation, he was exasperated beyond endurance that people could give their money to strange gods. I talked with a man not long ago, went to the Middle East, what happened? He wanted to go in a mosque. They said, sir, you can go in a mosque when you grow a beard, you've got to prove you're a man, we don't like women in. Number two, it's a sign of your dedication to your God. He said, Mr. Rainer, I went through the Middle East, you talk about prayer meetings. If we don't get a revival of praying, if we don't concentrate in prayer, your children will be praying in concentration camps in America, and it will happen in your time. What happened when he went to the mosque? A crack of dawn, he couldn't get in. Three thousand pairs of shoes outside, every money's down on his face before it's gone. Staying there for two hours if need be, listening to an address by the Ayatollah, saying how great Jesus Christ is. No, how great Allah is. And yet one man says, the greatest sermon I ever had on Jesus Christ was by Mohammedan, saying Jesus Christ is beyond all these other leaders of religion. I heard this recently of a man who got saved, he was a, I'll tell you how he got saved. His wife was a wonderful Christian, he was still a Mohammedan, and she taught him about the Lord. And in mercy, God came and visited him in the night. He had a dream, and he went to heaven, and he said when he got to heaven, he said to one of the guards there, I want to meet Allah. Allah doesn't live here. He said alright, show me Mohammed, he doesn't live here. He said who lives there? He said there, Jesus Christ, the son of God. And he said in my dream I saw Jesus Christ, and I realized Allah isn't in heaven and Mohammedan isn't there, but Jesus is there. And it changed his whole life. But you see, God isn't going to give us visions like that, he's revealing himself here in his word. Ok, we skipped over one event there, that's going to take me a minute here. Do you remember what happened? This man Elijah, the Lord tested him by the brook Kera. That wasn't a nice stream, it's a dirty stream. And they fed him with a raven. That raven didn't go and steal filet mignon off the table of the king. The raven is a carnivorous bird, it went to carcasses, it went to old bodies and ripped pieces of flesh and brought them to the man of God and brought him bread. And he drank water of the stream, but the stream dried up first. The natural always dries up before the supernatural. And there he was, the stream had dried up. Then when God has tested him in hiding, go hide, forget everybody else, break rank, get three years with yourself. Dear God, in eternity I'm going to ask you, what did you learn those three years? It's going to be awesome. He had a thousand revelations God would let him reveal to us in the three years of obedience. It's obedience that will bless us, nothing else until we get into line with the will of God. Okay, so then after he's proved himself, God says go to a widow. A widow? Who wants to sponge on a widow apart from TV evangelists? But you see he says I've commanded the ravens to feed thee there, I've commanded the widowman to feed thee there. And as long as you're in timing with God you won't die and you won't starve. I've commanded the raven to feed thee there. He goes to the widow and says make me a cake. I've only a handful of meal, a drop of oil. And I put them together and she made them. Put them together. Then what? He's three years in a cave, she's three years making doughnuts and fancy meals. It's rough you know when you pray and get somebody else out of bondage and leave and God leaves you in it. That's a test of faith isn't it? Okay, that was good, thank you. But wait a minute. He scored when he went and hid. He scored when he went to the woman there. And now he comes and he's coming to the most critical thing of all. Because our God is consuming fire. Notice it doesn't say the woman went to the door and said get the town crier. Go all over town and say listen, this is a man of God, he raised the dead, that's our business. Your business isn't to make people clever in your church, it's to raise the dead. Check and see how many of your deacons are born again, how many of your Sunday school teachers are generally born again. Did they take time to be all holy? Did they feed on this word? Or are they doing it by rote? Every child they teach they replace with a judgment seat. This is an awesome thing. No they didn't run around and say this man has proved his identity because he raises the dead. He says bring all the nations and the God that transfers by fire. Come on. Our God is a consuming fire. The most gorgeous building ever built in the history of the world was built by Solomon. He used gold to splash on the walls and gold on the floor and gold on the desk. It cost multiplied millions, maybe billions of dollars. He dressed the priests up in their garments. He slew thousands of oxen and thousands of sheep. It's the greatest show on earth. There's never been anything to equal it. And then what? The priests are there in their robes, the others are playing their instruments, the people are all gaping and wondering what's wrong. And he says there's just one thing missing. Oh yes we've got to sacrifice it but there's no fire. Let God of heaven come down and fire came down and vindicated the call of that man. When God was leading Israel he led them with a pillar of fire. They needed water. He could have sent a river to follow them but he didn't at that time. He sent a pillar of fire. Fire is the most destructive thing. Listen to what it says. That when this man cried and said let the fire come down, the fire came. Even though it saturated the sacrifice with water, the sacrifice was saturated but the fire came down and consumed it. But more than that it says it ate up the sacrifice, it licked up the stones, it ate up the dust, it ate up the water. In other words there's nothing left. There's nothing left. I got a letter this morning from a very wonderful president of a Pentecostal church. And he said thank you for your note for me please. Would you pray that I may have a new baptism of fire. I need the fire, I need the fire. That's what the church needs today, the fire. Scholarship on ice, give it to the ducks. Scholarship on fire, yes. Wesley had a genius of a brain and he got on fire. Listen to Charles Wesley says, O thou who camest from above the pure celestial fire to impart, kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart. There let it for thy glory burn within an extinguishable blaze, and tremble into its soul's return in constant prayer and fervent praise. Jesus confirmed my heart's desire to walk and speak and think of thee. Still let me guard the holy fire. Brother I think when he was singing tonight said, many of us, we haven't lost it. You didn't lose your first love, you left it. You left it purposely. Some of you spend far more time looking in a lousy stinking TV than you spend with God. And you sing we're the whole realm of nature man, forget it. We've changed from knowing God, the word, the God of the word, to knowing the word of God. Listen you don't get too far just knowing the word, you've got to know the God of the word. And what does Daniel say, the people that do know their Bibles? No. What does he say? The people that do know their God. We don't know God. You don't know the God of the New Testament. You don't know the God of miraculous. They stuffed you in some stupid seminary. A seminary without the fire of God is a sepulcher. I don't care how much Greek you know. We never had a more learned pulpit in America. When I came to America in 1950, there were only about 50 doctors in the place. Everybody's a doctor now. Does it scare the devil? Of course it hasn't. It's when we begin to burn with compassion, burn with love, burn for a lost world. Oh you'll shout Amen. Listen if God the Holy Ghost starts telling you right now you're spiritually bankrupt, don't wait till the end, get up and come and kneel here and cry to God. I don't care about the meeting being broken up. The meeting, God doesn't have to wait till the end of the meeting to get you to decide whether you'll take deity into your being, to control everything. Okay. Let me go to Edwin Hatch. He wrote one of the most lovely hymns I think ever. I sang it 80 years ago in England. Breathe on me breath of God. Fill me with life anew that I may love what thou wouldst love and do what thou wouldst do. Fill me, fill every part of me with praise. Let all my being speak of thee and of thy love, O Lord, poor though I be in me. Time to think of the other verse of the Gospel. Breathe on me breath of God till I am wholly thine, till all this earthly part of me glows with thy fire divine. What did this young man who knows his Greek and Hebrew, do you know what he did? He was saved in a Baptist meeting years ago and he became zealous testifying. Then he decided to go for a scholarship and he climbed up the rung until he got his Ph.D. and he's a brilliant doctor now. But he said, Mr. Raymond, I lost my anointing. So did some of you guys. Before you leaned on your authority and leaned on your psychology and leaned on your degrees, you used to pray and weep. I spent a month preaching in the greatest Baptist church in the country maybe. And that covers over Mr., the man that's coming tomorrow night I think, Dr. Christmas. I spent a month in the pulpit of Dr. Stanley in Atlanta. I prayed him three Saturday nights. He'd lay on his belly there, weeping and groaning and traveling. Send revival to my church. Sunday morning he preached till the sweat ran off his nose and off his chin. And I said after Charles, Jeremiah couldn't have lamented over his nation more than you did and wept for it. And he was constantly crying that this holy fire might be upon him. The fire is gone. Our churches are cold. There's no burning compassion for the lost. We sit in church and sing. What do we sing? Let the earth hear his voice. How? One way you prove you love God, you're obedient to him. And he says go into all the world, not into all the churches. Get in the street and preach. Let them see you're burning with a holy love. Let them see he's transformed you from selfishness and self-interest and self-seeking and self-glory. And you're consumed from sin and discomfort with the fire of God. Breathe on me breath of God. I love that great old hymn. One other thing, I was preaching in Ireland years ago and behind me was a picture of a woman. It looked like my mother. She had a lace collar and lovely hair. As I went into church they said they knew who that picture is. I said no, somebody very beautiful. It's Amy Wilson Carmichael. You remember she founded a Donovo Fellowship. She got a one-way ticket to India and stayed there 35 years. She had a curvature of the spine. The last three years of her life they lifted her in and out of bed every day. She wasn't playing tennis like you, wasn't doing exercises to roll the fat off before TV. That woman worked herself until 350 children. Over and over again she got replays of 350 and then became saved and went out to India to witness. And this is what she wrote. Here's a frail woman weighing 95 pounds. Give me a love that leads the way. A faith which nothing can dismay. A hope no disappointments tire. A passion that will burn like fire. Let me not sink to be a cloud. Make me thy fuel flame of God. Do you see what it's saying? She wanted to be fuel for God's fire to burn out. And then she bled out for God. Fire. I'll tell you once the fire of God touches you, you'll never forget that. God may have to do the same with you. He did with the three Hebrew children. They went in the burning fiery furnace. What happened? All that happened was the fire burned off them what the world had put on them. They were strapped but the fire set them free. You've been saying Lord set me free. Do you mean it? Are you absolutely sure tonight you want the fire to go in that life of yours? Here's the last thing. The horrible backsliding of these preachers in the last three or four years has brought an avalanche of criticism and bitterness and ridicule on the church of the living God. You know I don't care that much about it. I care for them. I weep. I groan that men claiming to be filled with the Holy Ghost can be led into such rotten sin. But wait a minute. It's not what the world says about them that troubles me. You know it hurts me about the church in which I live and you live. It's what Jesus said about it. Listen stuff your mind in the back of your mind. Get rid of your pre- tribulation theory or your post-tribulation theory or your mid- tribulation theory. Here is the church that Jesus Christ bled for and agonized in Gethsemane for and he bled on the cross for it. As the hymn says with his own blood he bought and for a life he died. When you've got rid of all your theories of post and mid and pre-trib. Most of you will agree I asked the class that we had last week or the week before. Do you believe we're living in a Laodicean period? Yes the church is laid back. What does Jesus say about it? Listen it's his criticism. It's not John writing. It's not a critic writing. Jesus says of his church this last phase you and I are in she's poor, wretched, naked, blind, miserable and now nasty. Now wait one minute. Our young princes in England all want to get married in Westminster Abbey and when they go they have a naval uniform on. It's got about eight gold buttons. They have a sword with a gold handle. Three thousand of the greatest people in the world, kings and presidents, scientists are allowed to come into that Abbey which seats three thousand people. You're three thousand of the choicest people in the world so called socially and the man up in the organ right above the altar at the front says listen how will I know when the bride comes to the door because there are men six trumpeters there and they'll give a blast and immediately they blast you. You start on that organ. Here comes the bride. Here comes the bride. So here's the fanfare and the guy up there says oh this is the moment of my life. I trained for years to play this multi-million dollar organ. Here it is. It's a royal wedding and he starts. Here comes the bride and just as he does there's a woman there at the front. She's got some artificial wedding clothes she bought in a junk shop and suddenly she jumps in front of the prince that's coming down the aisle and bares herself. Throws her clothes off. She's stark naked and stinking and a priest gets up and says hey you wicked woman what are you doing? She says I'm the bride. I'm the bride. I'm the bride. Come on with all your theories of the return of is Jesus Christ the Son of God coming for a bride that's dirty and lame and blind? Answer. Well then we ask the revival of holiness. He's not coming for a filthy lousy bride and you claim you're part of the bride. Which means at this very moment Jesus Christ can come because at this moment and every business transaction today you're conscious you're wearing a snow white robe of his righteousness. Every day you live more for his coming than for business. Every moment you, he's not going to give you a moment to get changed. He's not going to give you a moment preach to get rid of those dirty magazines you have. He may come at the moment you're watching that dirty show that you watch when your wife's gone to bed. There's no praying involved when he's caught out. He's not coming for a dirty bride. There has to be revival of true holiness and the only way to holiness is purity. What did he say to the disciples? Ye should be endued with powerful and high. Suddenly there was a rushing mighty wind and it sat on each of them and there was a clove and tang. The symbol was fire. The symbol of Christianity is not a cross. That's a Roman cruel thing. The signal of true Christianity is a tongue of fire. The day of Pentecost came. That babbling tongue of Peter's was so mighty they began to cry out. Here's the difference. Read the third chapter of Luke. When Luke was preaching and remember he was a Baptist who first preached the baptism with the Holy Ghost. And while he was preaching it said what? The people cried out. He went on preaching. The Pharisees cried out. He went on preaching. The publicans cried out. You see evangelists make an altar call. Revival people make the altar call. They cried out. What should we do? We can't stand this. We can't go back to our ritual and formality. We've seen spirit anointed men. Oh then leap over to one other thing. The day of Pentecost was fully come and Peter. He isn't running away from a woman pointing a finger. Peter is there anointed of God. And what did the people? The people cried out again. What should we do? What should we do? Listen preacher the best thing you can do for your church is to get some hell fire preaching and not make an altar call for a month. People are used to altar calls. They gear themselves for it. Either they come forward easily or they ignore it. You get to the place where they start ringing you up at night. I can't sleep. I'm not right with God. I'm not a true. I'm not a true. Sunday school teacher. I'm not a true deacon. I'm not a true witness. I'm faking it. Listen he's coming in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. If he comes 50 seconds from now will you be taken? He's not going to give you notice. He's not going to give you time to memorize a few scriptures. He's not going to give you time to pray. He's not going to give you time to get right with some people that you hate. He's coming for a pure church. There'll be a very very small remnant inside of a remnant when he comes. But that's who he's coming for. I don't believe he's coming for the whole church. For the simple reason Paul says if by any means I may attain to the rest. By any means. What do you mean? The man has built more churches, written more epistles, seen more miracles, raised the dead. And he says if there's any way I can be in that minority I want to be there. I'm going to get it whatever the cost may be. And it's going to cost that. It may not cost you anything to get right with God. It'll cost you a lot to stay right. Cost you opposition. Cost you ridicule. Well I'm going to stop there. I want to end this tonight. You really left your first love. You didn't lose it. You left it deliberately. You read other books more than you read this blessed book. You talk with people more than you talk with God. You're more stick and starchy about your position as an elder or a deacon or a preacher or a preacher's wife than you are about your relationship. There's one thing that will revolutionize your life. When I came to the altar a second time. You don't believe in the second blessing. OK that's your business. I'll tell you who did. Spurgeon did. Dr. A. J. Gordon. Over on the east coast believed in the second blessing. Find a book it's called. What's the book called? The Famous Christians. No. Pardon? Yeah. Yes. Yes. I forget the right term. Oh thanks. Thank you. There's a man who knows his Greek. Deeper experiences of famous Christians. Every one of them. George Fox had an experience of God but he couldn't keep sweet. Listen. Don't you think you're going to live a normal life if you get filled with the Holy Ghost. The trouble with our church is you can predict everything. The Holy Ghost has a chance. In the office on Wednesday they planned what God had to do on Sunday morning. Stand up for this hymn. Sit down. The choir will sing. Miss Jones will gargle to music. And then we'll have a few more things. Forget it. The New Testament church was totally unpredictable. You know we're going to get back to the place where there are churches where no man dared join himself. That if you're living in duplicity immediately walk through the door you'll drop down dead because you're a hypocrite. It's going to come back. Don't pray for the Holy Ghost to come if you want normality. He shatters normality. He's totally unpredictable. The first time you go in a Holy Ghost meeting you'll say God where have I been the last 20 years. You'll go home and you won't sleep. You'll go home and you won't want to eat. You'll say I can't stay like this. I'm sick of this wretched state I'm in. My eyes never had any tears. My heart never burns for lost world. My conscience is in siege to the devil now. Every day there are more people in America spend more time reading horoscopes than reading the Bible. We have more witchcraft in America than we've ever had in our history. And yet the church is normal. That's hypocrisy. I'm going to go home and get with God. See I'm going to go home. I'm going to get quiet with God and I won't get into bed until I know tonight God has baptized me with the Holy Ghost. He can burn up all my habits. He can burn up everything he likes as long as he brings purity and as long as he brings holy energy and he brings holy power. It's going to take that to move our generation to God. Would you stand? Father we thank you tonight for your presence. I'm sure you spoke to many hearts. Lord I ask you to make the next five minutes a tragedy to the devil. I pray people get rid of fear. Fear of man. Fear of consequences. Fear of death and of judgment. Because at this moment you're going to ask. They're going to make a pledge that before they get into bed tonight man and wife will kneel together and say Lord burn up every dross. Every bit of dross in our lives. Burn away our emptiness. Empty us and fill us. Strip us and clothe us. Baptize us with this fire that will give us a passionate love for souls and help us walk in purity. So Jesus comes. I'm going to ask you with your heads bowed and eyes closed. I'm not asking you to come forward. I want to know so I can go and pray for you. I'm asking you to drive home now. But you say I'm in business with God tonight. I'm tired of mediocrity. I'm going to move into a new sphere by the power of God. I promise you tonight I'll go home and I'll get quiet with God and I won't get into bed until I know God has really cleansed me and anointed me with the Holy Spirit of God. Will you do that? For God's sake raise your hand. Thank you dozens, hundreds. Lord this is your fruit not mine. Lord I expect to see a new anointing upon ministers and deacons tonight. Lord this weekend men will preach as they never preached in their lives. They'll have a passion and compassion. A mighty anointing in the Spirit. Bless the next speaker I pray in Jesus' name. Thank you. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/LdwHpcE105w.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/leonard-ravenhill/audio-sermon-where-is-the-fire/ ========================================================================